Fariya, Fariya
by shywr1ter
Summary: or, How Logan Cale Spent his Summer Vacation. Early S1, M/L. The cure for a dreary week of cold Seattle rain? A couple summer memories. My entry in BBWW's 4th annual Christmas in July challenge/festival.


**DISCLAIMER: Dark Angel borrowed; no profits made. **

_**Christmas in July Challenge '10**_

**A/N:** For the 4th annual BBWW Christmas in July Challenge/Story festival, with both readers and writers for S1 DA dwindling, we had no specific rules and no direct exchanges of givers and giftees this time, just the challenge to post in honor of the "season." As such, this is a sort of "seasonal" story, and just another of those early M/L moments I can't quit doing – so Merry Christmas in July, everyone!

Special thanks to Mari83 for providing the info needed for this story (even if it's not any of the "five things" discussed – I think you'll know it when you see it! :})

PS: As a note to my last post on BBWW about the delay in getting this up, it wasn't so much that I couldn't think of a title, but that this title came into my head immediately (as did the gravelly voice and raised fist that went with it) and no matter how I tried to replace it, I came up with nothin.' So this story is both a challenge reply _and_ a thanks to Mari83 for putting up with far too much hassle and insanity than any one person should have to put up with!

**VARIYA, VARIYA**

_**or, How Logan Cale Spent his Summer Vacation**_

Seattle was a hell of a place to live if one had been shot up.

Notwithstanding the part of Logan which was now impervious to pain, the injury he'd suffered only five months before had managed to chew up a few bones along with his spinal cord, above his level of sensation as well as below, and broken bones often meant achy bones when the weather changed. Especially when rain was involved.

_And isn't it just my luck to live in Seattle_, Logan gritted his teeth, stretching in another effort to be a little more comfortable as he sat glumly at his computer.

The rain worked more on his mood than on his body, he knew; he didn't really ache enough to pop the pain pills that made him more fuzzy than they were worth, and as Bling had pointed out an hour ago during their session, he was just grumpy with the fifth day in a row of chilly, persistent rain. Even the loose ends he was tying up in a long running investigation weren't keeping his attention as they should, a fact which simply added to his surliness. _At least Bling wasn't still around to ruin a good sulk_, he grumped to himself.

At that moment his front door opened abruptly, a bit more noisily than usual, and there was no stealth in the flat-footed stomp of Max on his floorboards. _Great_, he added, as he imagined at least a dozen versions of pissed off Max showing up to add to the gloom, and wondered how much worse the day could get. He didn't have time to start down that list before Max's damp face and mist-covered, curling hair poked around the corner to his office.

"Hey," she demanded flatly. And waited, looking at him impatiently.

_Uh-oh_, Logan realized, _I was supposed to do something for her ..._

His poker face must have failed him entirely, because as he stared back at her, trying to remember what he'd promised this time, Max's eyes narrowed. "Oh, Logan, c'mon! I _need_ that light – or I need to get one another way. It doesn't matter worth a damn how well _I_ can see in the dark if the crazy drivers around here can't see _me_ in all that mess out there."

_Damn._ His flashlight. He had a halogen multi-purpose lamp with wraparound, rubber-grip tripod legs that could make a great bicycle headlight, something she needed two weeks ago and would never find any time soon with special orders as they were now, at least not one this good. He'd promised Max she could use it, so she wouldn't need to buy another; he didn't need it and honestly had meant to look. He just hadn't gotten around to it, and now it seemed that, like both of their moods, the rain and gloom were getting more dark and insistent. "I know; I just didn't get..."

"Look, never mind, okay? I'll deal – I always _do_," she sniped. "Thanks a bunch anyway." Max raised her hand in an irritated dismissal as her voice carried every ounce of her irritation, and she pivoted to leave when an already surly Logan reacted.

"Hey! I'll _get_ it." He snapped off his brakes as loudly as he could, and spun out to the hall where Max was drawing a breath to tell him again not to bother. "_I'll get it_ – " he interrupted before she could reply, "I've just had a few things of my own to do too, ya know?"

"Look, Logan, if it's _that_ big a hassle, just..."

"No hassle," he said stubbornly, pushing down the hall to his entry, his own irritation loud and clear. "I just wasn't sure exactly where it was and thought I _might_ have to do some digging, but you're here _now_, and I'll _get_ it."

Max frowned but followed along, her own annoyance from her day fading a bit as her intrigue grew, observing Logan. He was a prickly one, no doubt, but today was different. Usually his crappy moods were one of several variations of his frustration at the world, at the system, at all the wrongs he had to right. Today, though, his responses seemed a little more angry at life itself, a little more bitter – not something she'd heard much from him, she realized. And while she wasn't surprised that it made her curious to know what was going on with him, it _did_ surprise her that she really wanted to know _why_ – maybe even try to shake the mood from him.

_You're getting soft, Max_, she chided herself before speaking. "What's up your butt?" she began.

"Wouldn't know," he muttered, his sarcasm more to himself than to her, and pulled open the door off the entry that led to a large storage closet. Another new curiosity almost overcame the first as Max peered inside a room she'd never seen, and she unceremoniously pushed around Logan, where he'd started rifling through a box of camping gear. Glancing up first at the pair of skis hanging in a frame bolted to the ceiling, she looked around the shelves and stacked boxes to decide where she should start some snooping of her own.

After a few moments of hearing Max rummage through his things without a shred of subtlety, Logan stopped his own search long enough to turn and watch her for another moment, his pointed glare not fazing her in the least. With a soft snort, Logan finally griped, "maybe I should just let you shop around in here, and you can just take whatever catches your eye?"

"Look, I didn't beg this lamp from you, you know." She gave as good as she got from him without dropping a beat in her pursual through his things. "I _said_ I'd find one; you were the one who insisted yours was so great and I didn't need..."

"Okay, sorry – _sorry_," he interrupted, then took a breath before speaking again. The bitterness and anger had receded, and now he simply sounded defeated. "Look, I know – you're right; I just didn't get to it when I should have. I'm sorry."

The new tone stopped her, and Max glanced up to consider him yet again, hearing the complete sincerity in his changed mood. She wondered all over again about what was going on with him. She cocked her head to the side, her question just as sincere as his apology had been. "You okay?" she tried.

This time he sighed, seeming to brush off the worst of things. "Nothing that a little sunshine wouldn't cure," he finally offered a tiny smile.

"_Tell_ me about it," she snorted her agreement, and went back to her overt snooping, peering into a few boxes and envelopes and other containers. "You know, Logan, if you want me to just look around in here, maybe I can ..."

"No need," he sat up straight again with his prize in hand, smiling at his find. "Bet it still works, too."

But suddenly Max's attention wasn't on the light anymore. "Oh – yeah, cool," she replied, clearly distracted. Something from one of the boxes on a higher shelf had caught her interest...

Logan snorted again, but with far less irritation than before. "All the drama and yelling, and when I find it all you can say is 'cool?'"

"I found something else..."

"I imagine you would; this is called a 'storage closet' for a reason." He tried to keep his voice light as he joked, but was suddenly keenly aware that Max had been rifling through his life, most of it old stuff stored away after the Pulse, and he couldn't quite recall what all he still had back here. He felt oddly self-conscious to see her so curious about what he had hidden away –and oddly worried that she'd find something he wasn't yet ready for her to know about him.

"What _is_ all this?" Max lifted a large brown envelope, swollen with pamphlets and brochures and other small things stuffed inside. She pulled out several of the colorful fliers, fanning them toward Logan like a card dealer. As Logan turned his head to take a look, he caught sight of the scenes shown there and the French text explaining them, and his embarrassment melted with the memories triggered by what she'd found.

He took the small stack of travel brochures from her slowly, a soft smile growing little by little, lighting up his face. "I haven't seen these in probably ten years," he said in some wonder, his eyes flitting over the array of items in Max's hands.

Max peered back into the large brown envelope and saw more – some light purple soaps that still had a gentle floral scent, a couple small pouches of who knew what, some postcards and matchbooks. As she reached back in the envelope to examine things more closely, several rice-sized, greyish grain-like things rattled around at the bottom, and even more fell out of the folded pamphlets still inside when she dumped them out into her hand. She wrinkled her nose and thrust her palm out toward him. "What're these?" she frowned.

He peered over into her hand, then grinned up at her. "Lavender," he announced with a laugh.

"You have lavender and smelly soaps and postcards like this holed away up here?" Max gave him a skeptical look. "What else don't I know about you?"

He laughed again, easily, the memories brought back by the odd array of memorabilia clearly letting him forget his latest round of brooding, at least for the moment. "You might be surprised," he chuckled. At her pointedly raised eyebrows, his look softened for her, suddenly reminded yet again how different Max's pre-Pulse life had been from his, and how sad it was that she didn't have some memories of her own like these, tucked away somewhere. "These were from a trip I took one summer to Provence, in the south of France, maybe a year or two before the Pulse. It wasn't my first trip to France, but it was the first in several years – the first without my parents – and the first that wasn't ..." He suddenly grinned at some sudden memory. "...air conditioned."

"You mean the first after the Pulse?" she frowned, unsure.

He shook his head. "I mean the first that wasn't spent in over-priced, overstuffed hotels, formal restaurants, resorts ... it was a real vacation, with a couple friends from college who got it in their heads they wanted to see the world-famous lavender fields of Provence. Lavender was actually what got us talking about it, maybe sort of starting off as a joke, but it ended up getting us there, actually making the trip."

Max's hip jutted out as her lips curled up in a smirk. "You want me to believe you ran off to another country to see some flowers growing?"

Logan met her eyes for a moment longer than he had before, a mixture of his clearly happy memories with a bit of challenge now, before breaking his gaze to look through the array of booklets, maps and cards in his hands. Pulling one postcard from the pile, he looked back up to Max to meet her smirk with his own, softer one as he handed her the card. "No, not 'some flowers growing.' _These_..."

Max took the proffered postcard and saw in it an ancient, grey stone building – _some sort of church or something_, she guessed – sitting amid a rolling field of deep purple, in close rows like a huge, dark purple, quilted blanket, stretching on as far as the camera's "eye" could see. Her eyebrows went up yet again but this time more in surprise ... and appreciation. "Wow," she said softly.

"Those little things in your hand are from lavender sprigs taken from that very field," Logan said, "but don't let it get around – you're not allowed to just take the stuff unless they invite the public to pick it."

Max looked back at the small seeds in her palm, then to the card again in the other, before laughing softly. "Who'd'a thought that Eyes Only was such a softie, for visits to a place like this and for a stack of memories to go with it?"

To her surprise, Logan's expression became a bit wistful within the still-warm memories of his trip. After a moment's reflection, he actually answered her rhetorical question by saying, "not me. But now, since the Pulse has turned everything upside down, and it's not so easy just to book a plane ticket overseas ... I'm glad I have some of those things still around. Just a few things like this make it easier to remember better times."

Max was as close as she'd ever been to reminding him once again what her life and her "better times" had been like, compared to his Little Lord Fauntleroy existence. But in the past few weeks, as she'd gotten to know him, she learned he was far more complex than what she expected for a product of a wealthy family. Apparently he'd lost his parents when he was fairly young and had a pretty crappy home life after that. She also was suspicious that he wasn't nearly as "whatever" about being shot up and in that chair of his as he wanted to play off, and she found herself wondering if the memories that made him smile now were some of the same things that, most of the time, made the wheelchair even harder for him to take. The skis hanging overhead and the large box of expensive camping gear seemed to support her speculation.

So she bit her tongue, tossed her curls with her usual attitude, and smirked, though a little more kindly than intended moments before, "maybe so. But I just don't know about the protector of the city and defender of the downtrodden romping in fields of flowers."

This time when he met her eyes, Max could see his emotions shift from a slightly misty memory of times now lost to him, back to his meeting another challenge. "Oh, no?" he replied, snapping off his brakes with a grin, to pivot and head back to the computer room. "I think I have some proof that it wasn't all flowers."

Max followed to watch him close a couple idling programs and open a menu filled with subfiles containing subject lines written in some cryptic, Logan Cale code. He was murmuring to himself about "wrong one" or "c'mon, I know they're in here..." before crowing _"voilà!"_

"Lavender sniffing gets you talking French?" she rolled her eyes.

He ignored her comment and reached over to pull the other desk chair close to the screen. "Sit," he ordered. "It wasn't all flowers."

The first photo that popped up made Max's eyes pop as well – on a craggy stone bluff, by a wall that looked like some ancient ruins, a Logan Cale of a decade ago stood bare-chested and bronzed, sweat glistening on his face and plastering a couple spikes of hair to his brow, backpack on his sun-browned back and a smile as wide as the valley behind him. "Ha, see?" he crowed at her surprise. "That was the next week – we hiked all the way up there in 33 degrees Celsius – that's about 90 Fahrenheit..."

" 91.4," she almost managed to sound unimpressed when she drawled her correction, "but who's counting?"

"Okay, _91.4_ degrees," he snorted in a bit more pride, "and we ran up and down some crazy fitness trail they had..." He switched to three more shots of himself and another couple males of about the same age and fitness, grinning figures running along an impossibly long, steep stone stairway that appeared to disappear from view, never-ending... "and then we poked around in some caves in the bastille, here..."

He switched again to a photo of a cavernous lookout from what appeared to be a centuries-old fortress. This time her prod was made in a softer, a gentler tone, just to keep up appearances. "You and a bunch of other tourists," she teased. "There are Coke cans laying around there, and some graffiti next to the exit sign..."

"_Sortie_ sign," he corrected with a grin.

"What_ever_," her eyes rolled again.

But when Logan saw her response, he heard from Max less of the usual, sarcastic tough-guy attitude, and saw a new look in her eye, connecting with his best memories of that summer and the trip, and knew she'd seen a part of him he'd managed to keep hidden and buried for a long time – from her, from everyone, because of Eyes Only and, recently, because of the chair. He wanted to be embarrassed at his candor and at his pride in his former self; he wanted to be angry at the world and the chair and everything that had prevented him from returning, time after time, to that lavender field and that summer.

_But he couldn't._

He couldn't, because the memories were too good, the place was too beautiful; he was too fortunate to have had the chance to go hunt lavender while he could when Max and others, those like her and others unlike her, never had the chance. He was too lucky to have a gifted, beautiful woman like Max sit beside him on a dreary, chilly day and look at old photos of what had been – or, what had been _for him_, but not her – not to feel for that moment as if he'd led anything less than a charmed life. So he smiled...

And Max saw, in that moment, a live, up close and personal version of the stunning smile from that sunburned, windblown, _handsome_ face in the photo from a handful of years and a lifetime removed from that day in rainy, drizzly Seattle...

It was a smile she suddenly knew she wanted to see again, as often as she could. And suddenly ... Max was sure she could catch the elusive scent of lavender...


End file.
